Cliff Stearns: “this bill, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, as the chairman mentioned, simply aims to prevent tragic…”

“this bill, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, as the chairman mentioned, simply aims to prevent tragic drowning and entrapment accidents that of course are entirely preventable with the addition of some simple equipment at a modest cost, I think we all agree. What we have here I believe is significantly different and significantly improved over what was initially referred to our committee. So, again, in a bipartisan fashion, I think we've improved the bill. So I commend the chairman for including some of the modifications that we suggested and some of the modifications that came from his staff. My colleagues, this legislation has two distinct components: one, it adopts an industry standard on drain covers; and two, it establishes a grant program administered by the Commission designed to provide incentives to States to change their State laws regarding pool safety demands. These incentives, through these grants, the States will change their laws. I fully support the intent of this measure, and I will, therefore, support the drain cover standard. I would like to reiterate the concern I expressed during consideration of the bill earlier, that of turning voluntary industry standards into commission rules. Without repeating what I said earlier on one of the previous bills, I again simply caution my colleagues about the unintended precedents our actions today may put in place.”